Thirteen Men Return To Seminary Studies

The 2018-2019 class of men continuing their discernment and training for the priesthood for the Diocese of Lake Charles is one of its largest and each man has been assigned to various seminaries by Bishop Glen John Provost. The Bishop, seen center in the above photo, is seated with the class. Seated with him are, from left, Andrew DeRouen, Joseph Caraway, Deacon Michael Caraway, and Levi Thompson. Standing, from left, are Michael Beverung, Alec January, Josh Page, Conner Chaisson, Samuel Bond, Treville Belcher, Lai Nguyen, Olin Scot Chester, and Garrett Broussard. Belcher, Chaisson, and Broussard are the three newest men accepted by Bishop Provost for entry into the seminary. Deacon Michael Caraway, who will return to the Pontifical North American College in Rome following his fall internship, was ordained to the diaconate in June. He will join three other men, at the PNAC - Andrew DeRouen, Joseph Caraway, and Levi Thompson. Deacon Caraway will be completing his fourth year of theological study while the trio are in their third theological year. They, along with Sam Bond, studying at Notre Dame Seminary College in New Orleans, are expected, with God’s grace, to be ordained next June to the transitional diaconate by Bishop Provost. The priestly ordination of Deacon Caraway is expected at the same time.

New seminarians, Treville Belcher and Garrett Broussard, both in First Year Pre-Theology at Notre Dame Seminary and Conner Chaisson in First Year College at St. Joseph Seminary College. Alec January and Josh Page are in their fourth year of philosophy study at St. Joseph. Also, at Notre Dame Seminary will be Michael Beverung in second year theology, Lai Nguyen in second year pre-theology, and Olin Scott Chester in first year theology. The men represent 10 church parishes of the diocese – Michael Beverung – Our Lady Queen of Heaven; Sam Bond – Our Lady of LaSalette, DeQuincy; Levi Thompson – St. Theodore, Moss Bluff; Joseph Caraway – St. Charles Borromeo, Fenton and its mission, St. John the Evangelist, Lacassine; Andrew DeRouen – Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception; Lai Nguyen, Garrett Broussard, and Treville Belcher – all Our Lady of Good Counsel; Deacon Michael Caraway – Our Lady Help of Christians, Jennings; Alec January – St. Philip Neri, Kinder; Olin Scott Chester – St. Joseph, Vinton; and Josh Page and Conner Chaisson – both Our Lady of Prompt Succor, Sulphur. Rev. Jeffrey Starkovich, the pastor of St. Pius X Catholic Church in Ragley, serves as Director of Seminarians and Vocations for the diocese, overseeing the education, training, and discernment of these men. Additionally, before their return to school, three seminarians – Olin Scott Chester, Michael Beverung, and Sam Bond - were accepted by Bishop Provost to Candidacy for Admission to Holy Orders. The Rite of Admission is celebrated when a seminarian has reached a maturity of purpose regarding his vocation and has shown the necessary qualities for ordained ministry. Through this liturgical rite, a seminarian makes a public intention of receiving Holy Orders and resolves to continue his preparation, in mind and spirit, in order to give faithful service to Christ and His Church.

VATICAN CITY -- With the 50th anniversary of "Humanae Vitae" being celebrated on Wednesday, July 25, the story of how Blessed Pope Paul VI arrived at the final text of is a main focus of discussion.

Blessed Paul VI, who is to be canonized on Sunday, October 14, issued his encyclical in 1968, after a commission of theologians and experts spent four years meeting to study in-depth whether the Church could be open to the contraceptive pill or other artificial forms of birth control.

In his encyclical, Blessed Pope Paul VI reaffirmed that sexual relations cannot be detached from fecundity. The event was a watershed moment in the Church.

A study group from the Rome-based John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family aims to produce a paper on the development of the encyclical. The group is led by cultural anthropology professor Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, who teaches at the institute.

Professor Marengo told Vatican Radio July 25 that the commission in the end “was not able to give Bl. Paul VI what he needed to draft the encyclical,” and so the Pope “had almost had to start again.”

He underscored that Bl. Paul VI's work was made even more difficult by the fact that “public opinion in the Church was very much polarized, not only between in favor and in opposition to the contraceptive pill, but also among theologians, who presented the same polarized counter-position.”

While the discussion was still ongoing, a document favorable to Catholic approval of the birth control pill was published simultaneously in April 1967 in the French newspaper Le Monde, the English magazine The Tablet, and the American newspaper the National Catholic Reporter.

The report emphasized that 70 members of the Pontifical Commission were favorable to the pill, but in fact the document was “just one of the 12 reports presented to the Holy Father.” Those are the words of Bernardo Colombo, a professor of demographics and a member of the commission, writing in the March 2003 issue of “Teologia,” the journal of the theological faculty of Milan and Northern Italy.

When Paul VI published Humanae Vitae, public opinion was thus already oriented against the Church’s principles which the pontiff reaffirmed, and the Church’s teaching was strongly targeted.

The professor's first impression is that when the study group's research is complete “it will be possible to set aside many partisan readings of the text” and will be easier to “grasp the intentions and worries that moved Paul VI to solve the issue the way he did.”

The story of the encyclical dates back to 1963, when St. John XXIII established the commission to study the topics of marriage, family, and regulation of birth.

Pope Paul VI later enlarged the commission's membership from six to twelve people. Then he further increased its numbers to 75 members, plus a president, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and two deputies, Cardinals Julius Doepfner and John Heenan.

After the end of the works of the commission, Paul VI asked a restricted group of theologians to give further examination to the topic.

Pope Francis has shown great appreciation for Bl. Paul VI and for “Humanae Vitae” several times, such as in an interview March 5, 2014 with the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, ahead of two synods on the family.

Asked if the Church was going to take up again the theme of birth control, the Pope responded: that “all of this depends on how 'Humanae Vitae' is interpreted. Paul VI himself, at the end, recommended to confessors much mercy, and attention to concrete situations.”

The Pope added that Bl. Paul VI's “genius” was “prophetic,” because the Pope “had the courage to place himself against the majority, defending the moral discipline, exercising a culture brake, opposing present and future neo-Malthusianism.”

“The question,” Pope Francis concluded, “is not that of changing the doctrine but of going deeper and making pastoral (ministry) take into account the situations and that which it is possible for people to do. Also of this we will speak in the path of the synod.”

Prof. Marengo told Vatican Radio that it would also be “very useful to piece together the path to the drafting of the encyclical, which developed in different phases from June 1966 to its publication on July, 25th 1968.”

He said the encyclical must be placed in the context of “everything important and fruitful the Church has said on marriage and family during these last 50 years.”

Prof. Marengo's study group includes John Paul II Institute president Prof. Pierpaolo Sequeri; Prof. Philippe Chenaux of the Pontifical Lateran University, an authority regarding the Second Vatican Council and the history of the contemporary Church; and Professor Angelo Maffeis, president of the Paul VI Institute based in Brescia.

As in the lead-up to “Humanae Vitae,” there is misleading news coverage of the study group.

When the news of the study group first broke, it was described as a “pontifical commission” aimed at changing the teachings of “Humanae Vitae.”

Professor Marengo dismissed this as an “imaginative report” in a June interview with CNA. For his part, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, chancellor of the John Paul II Institute, confirmed that no pontifical commission had been appointed. He maintained that “we should look positively on all those initiatives, such as that of Professor Marengo of the John Paul II Institute, which aim at studying and deepening this document in view of the 50th anniversary of its publication.”